Tim Slee's Blog: How's the Serenity? - Posts Tagged "review"

When I found out yesterday that the father of cyberpunk had collaborated to write a comic book set in an alternate WWII universe I nearly peed myself a bit. I let out an audible WOOHOO.



Because I love Gibson and I love stories set in WWII and I love anything quantum sciency and I love graphic novels and this was all four of those! It did become a bit of a BOOHOO, but the trouble with this review for you dear reader is that I am trying to get more positivity into my life so I am only going to speak to the WOOHOO parts.

THE ART: The illustrations by Butch Guice, Alejandro Barrionuevo and Wagner Reis are very atmo and moody and dark but not horror dark more 'world in flames' kind of dark.



One of the key protagonists is a British officer and the illustrators have done an amazing job channeling one of my favorite classic movie heroines, Susanna York, in her role as a WAAF in the move 'Battle of Britain.' What am I talking about? Check it!

Doctor Naomi Givens


Susanna York


THE END NOTES: End notes! I love end notes. There is an end note from Gibson about how the project came about and how he found the process of scripting a comic book (I'd call this more of a comic book than graphic novel) and then some wonderful line drawings and word concept sketches of all the main characters.



THE CHARACTERS: The true heroes are ladies who kick ass, solve puzzles and have no need to get romantically involved with ANY of the men.

One star for each of those things gives three! And you can work out the weaknesses from the things I haven't discussed!

Berlin Noir: Penguin eBook by Philip Kerr

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I have very very few books in my Did Not Finish pile, and none of those are crime noir novels because I LOVE NOIR... but ...

(Thud of Phillip Kerr’s Berlin Noir series hitting the floor)

... this one is a first.

It shouldn’t have been, I love the setting (Berlin, 1930s, bad Nazis ... awesome). Second, he has the tone down pat, with some great Chandleresque writing:

“If he was a member of the human race at all, Neumann was its least attractive specimen. His eyebrows, twitching and curling like two poisoned caterpillars, were joined together by an irregular scribble of poorly matched hair. Behind thick glasses that were almost opaque with greasy thumbprints, his grey eyes were shifty and nervous, searching the floor as if he expected that at any moment he would be lying flat on it. Cigarette smoke poured out from between teeth that were so badly stained with tobacco they looked like two wooden fences.”

Third, well, the bad guys are Nazis, did I mention that? So it had to take a lot to get me to throw this one in the literary bin. It was the rampant sexism that did my head in. And yes, I realise it was written in the 1990s and is set in the 1930s but that isn’t an excuse. I just finished a couple of Dashiell Hammet novels written seventy years ago and they weren’t as bad as this one. I let the first couple of passages of derogatory remarks about women slide past in the hope he was just building the protagonist up as a sleazeball, but after a while I realised it was the WRITER’S voice coming through, not his character’s.

This is the passage that made me puke:

“Is that a fact?’ she said, smiling quietly to herself. It irritated me quite a bit, that smile; in part because I felt she was patronizing me, but also because I wanted desperately to stop it with a kiss. Failing that, the back of my hand.”

WHAAAAT...

I immediately thought, oh, ok, so because the woman is patronising the dumb gumshoe, that’s an excuse for a little light assault?

Yes, men in the 1930s thought like that. Hell, there are plenty of dumbass men today who are or should be in jail who think like that. But I read plenty of noir from all ages where it doesn’t come through as pure misogyny in the way Kerr’s writing does.

2 stars for his talent with metaphor and simile, and that’s it. Avoid this writer unless you WANT quotes to use in essays on misogyny!



View all my reviews

Release day getting closer. Have been sending book out to different places to garner reviews. Got the first one back from 'Readers Favorite'



You can get a free advance review eBook here.

https://dl.bookfunnel.com/g4fdazides

And here is the Readers Favorite review!

Review Rating: 5 Stars - Congratulations on your 5-star review!

Reviewed By Anne-Marie Reynolds for Readers’ Favorite

Bering Strait is a thriller. It is 2031 and a new cold war between America and Russia is starting. Perri Tungyan is a Yup’ik fisherman, just 17 years old. He lives on Saint Lawrence Island in the Bering Strait and, as he awaits the weekly shopping drone at the Gambell airstrip, he notices several specks in the sky. These loom larger and larger, identifying as aircraft, and Perri suddenly realizes that he is the only one who knows what is happening. Russia has started to take control of the Strait. Russian ships move in to block the entrance and exit to the Strait and a no-fly zone is imposed over Western Alaska. The lives of eight people are about to be turned upside down as Armageddon approaches.

When I started reading Bering Strait, I found it a bit slow going and didn’t think I would be able to get into it but, wow, it soon picks up the pace and becomes impossible to put down. The action is intense and the plot unique. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader on their toes and keep their attention while it soars along at a fast pace. The characters are developed nicely throughout the story, each having their own part to play and meshing with one another seamlessly. You soon begin to empathize with them and they are a likeable bunch of people too. This story is unmissable and slightly scary because it isn’t set very far in the future and, given recent world events, isn’t out of the realms of possibility. Great story, highly recommended for those who want a tight, gripping tale to lose themselves in.

Hi all! After receiving a few too many sad emojis on FaceBook over the fact my earlier fiction experiments have been taken offline I thought 'heck with it' and have made them available for FREE via BookFunnel.

These full length books were all experiments; written fast and loose, between 2016 and 2018 as I explored different ideas, genre (sci fi, fantasy, noir, thriller, historical, crime fiction) and styles. Yes, I write at a crazy pace once the mood takes me and my goal was to get as much feedback as I could about my work as quickly as possible. There is no greater feedback than seeing whether people will buy your book and once they have, what they write about it!

Just go to my page on GoodReads, and you'll see a download link where you can pick up the ebooks in the format of your choice.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Published between 2016 and 2018 there are six novels available:

Post apocalyptic fiction - The Vanirim and the Aesir (Vanirim was an award winner)

Historical fiction - Queen of America

Crime/thriller - Charlie Jones volumes 1-3 (Volume 2 was an award winner)

Enjoy!

TJ